Portugal

Cyril Pedrosa | Translated by Montana Kane

Based on his own experience, Pedrosa narrates this return to his roots in a deeply compelling and warmly human way. This is his bestselling graphic novel with over 100,000 copies sold in France and a winner of many prizes including Best Graphic Novel at the Angouleme Festival and FNAC Best GN.

Comics artist Simon Muchat is stuck. Suffering writer's block, uninspired, vegetating as a school art teacher, he is losing direction and his taste for life, until one day he is invited to appear at a comics convention in Portugal, the country his family came from and which he hadn't seen since his childhood. The experience proves cathartic. Even though he is not Portuguese himself and is a foreigner there, so many elements are familiar to him. Meeting its lively citizens, full of the zest for life, his distant yet welcoming family bringing back fond early memories, all prove reinvigorating, the breath of fresh air he so badly needed.

Michael Cavna of The Washington Post calls Portugal, ”one of top ten graphic novels of 2017. As much a triumph of atmosphere as action. The book's artist as a young man may be disenchanted, but the dazzling, meditative panels are entirely enchanting."